Qetsiyah

There was full moon the previous night, so Mikaelson family and their neighbours had retreated to the caves below their village.

This was already morning and it was taking more time than usual for the daily life to begin in the village.

But not all people in the village retreated to the caves every full moon.

Some families didn't need to, like the werewolf families, or some witches who lived alone, like Ayana.

Rebekah and Esther were currently in Ayana's house as Rebekah waited for Esther to freshen up.

The sun had already risen, and Rebekah was bored, looking out of the window at the villagers going about their daily lives.

This was a witch's house, so naturally there were many charms and Magical objects, even grimoires full of spells.

Rebekah's attention got drawn to a display of necklaces, enchanted with several kinds of spells.

So she started picking them up one by one, to take a better look. Girls always likes their jewelleries.

"Sliishhhh.!!", one of the necklaces burned Rebekah's hand as soon as she touched it.

"Aahhh!! Ouch! Ayana, you burned me!", Rebekah spoke in an accusing tone as she noticed Ayana approaching from behind.

"That is not yours to touch.", Ayana reprimanded lightly.

But before she could explain further, "Mother!!", "Mother!!", "MOTHER!!!", they heard Nicklaus's voice constantly shouting for their mother.

"It's Nicklaus's voice! Something must have gone wrong.", Rebekah spoke in a panicked tone as she ran outside.

When Rebekah came outside, she was shocked and grief-stricken by what she saw.

Nicklaus was carrying Henrik's bloody body as he cried and walked towards Ayana's house, while he constantly shouted for their mother to come out.

Not long after, crowd gathered and Nicklaus explained the situation.

Apparently, he and Henrik had sneaked out to go and watch the men transform into wolves under the light of full moon.

When the werewolves transform into their wolf form, they loose control of themselves, and attack anything that moves in their vicinity.

So inevitably, one of the werewolves attacked Nicklaus and Henrik as they were making their way back, and Henrik got mortally wounded.

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Not far from the village of Mystic Falls, Kol had created a large clearing among the trees and transfigured the ground into a solid marble floor, with Asgardian rune arrays engraved in it.

He looked at the stone wheel floating in front of him.

This stone wheel was completely covered in ancient Asgardian runes as it glowed in green light, and hovered in thin air.

When the gene pools of two different species are combined into one, Hybrids are produced.

A multicellular organism is made up of several different kinds of cells that have their own sets of chromosomes corresponding to different traits.

But to understand what Kol was trying to do here, we must first understand how different traits of both the parents are passed down to the Hybrid, from a cellular level.

First of all, an 'Allele' is one of two, or more, forms of a given gene variant.

Therefore, the collection of all genetic possibilities for a single trait, are called 'Alleles'.

'Zygosity' is the degree to which both copies of a trait have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the 'Alleles' in an organism.

Most complex multicellular organisms have two matching sets of chromosomes, which makes them diploid, but obviously, Kryptonians and Darkseid are bound to be much more complex than that. They might even have triple helix, or even quadruple helix, or not so helix gene chains.

There can be four types of 'Zygosity' in an Hybrid.

If for a single trait, the 'Alleles' of both the parents in the new Hybrid are the same, the cells responsible for that trait are 'homozygous'. It means that the similar traits of both the parents are inherited.

If they are different, meaning the non-similar traits of both the parents are inherited, then the cells are 'heterozygous'.

If one 'Allele' is missing, meaning one trait is inherited from one parent, then the cells are 'hemizygous'.

And if both alleles are missing, meaning an entirely new trait is formed that doesn't match either parents, then the cells are 'nullizygous'.

But Kol didn't simply just want to become a regular Hybrid, but a new specie that encompassed all the traits of both its parents, and yet surpassed them both by a large margin.

He wanted his cells to be 'homozygous', 'heterozygous', 'hemizygous', and 'nullizygous', depending on whichever was the optimal result for a particular trait.

In other words, he wanted to make himself the perfect Hybrid.

And even with the knowledge of Odin and that Kryptonian scientist, such a result would be a biological impossibility.

Yet Kol never stopped trying, and in the end, after all these years, he found the answer in the most unlikeliest of place. The 'Immortality spell' of this world.

He had to alter that spell to match his needs, of course, but he had succeeded nonetheless, and now he was looking at the result.

Previously before coming here, instead of using the blood of the doppelgänger, Kol had used the blood of Darkseid as the linking agent for the spell, as well as the spell carrier.

So when he drank that blood carrying the spell, the ritual for 'immortality spell' was initiated.

Kol looked through the hollow face of the stone wheel. Behind it was a small stone pillar that had the Power Stone placed on top of it.

Behind the pillar was an alter with a big bowl placed on top of it. This bowl contained all the genetic materials of Darkseid that Kol possessed.

He took a deep breath to adjust his state of mind, then he activated all the spell formations.

Everything here was powered by the Power Stone, which first activated with a loud boom, and then all the formations started coming to life.

After a while, the Power Stone released a beam of purple light at the stone wheel that was hovering in the air in front of Kol.

The stone wheel first absorbed the energy from the purple beam of light as the green glow started to get brighter and brighter.

Eventually, this green glow turned into a green beam of light that hit Kol from the front, "BOOM!!".

As soon as this beam hit him, he felt weak and bent down to his knees.

As time passed, the green beam of light started to get more and more consentrated and became thicker and thicker, indicating that more and more energy was put into it.

"BOOM.!!", eventually, the green beam penetrated Kol's chest and exited from his back.

Kol had already turned off the 'spell of life and soul concept' before activating these magic formations, so his body layed dead on the ground with a big hole in the chest, as the stone wheel finally broke down into pieces and fell to the ground.

On the other hand, Kol's heart exited from his chest, and flew in the air, passing by the stone pillar, it made its way towards the genetic samples of Darkseid.

"Thud.!!", as soon as the heart dropped into the bowl containing organic samples, it broke down into pieces.

Then all the flesh and blood contained in the bowl started to congregate together, and form a new heart that not only comprised of the remains of Kol's previous heart, but all the genetic samples of Darkseid as well.

Eventually the new heart was made, and it flew in the air towards Kol's dead body.

However, as it passed above the stone pillar, the Power Stone automatically shot at it, and merged with the new heart.

Now this heart had the Power Stone in the middle of it as it flew into Kol's chest.

The stone wheel from before was meant to convert the energy from the Power Stone into the radiation released from Kryptonite.

The formations on the ground had many functions, one of which was to slow down the healing process of Kol's body and dug his heart out as soon as his body was weak enough from the radiation of Kryptonite.

Before starting this ritual, Kol had already drank the blood of Darkseid that carried the spell. So the immortality spell was already inside him, and got activated as soon as his body died.

When Kol's heart entered in its place in his chest, the wound there healed instantly, but he didn't wake up.

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Kol opened his eyes and looked around.

Instead of the clearing he created in the forest, he found himself in a space with no borders. Just the pure darkness with no end in sight.

The only source of light were the strange blue fire torches that burned in darkness. They were scattered around all over the place at irregular intervals, without any fuel or medium.

The scenery was overall beautiful, yet this place gave off a cold, dead feeling. Anyone would instinctively feel desperate and dreadful here, like they would die if they stayed too long.

"Oh Hello! You're finally here. Took you long enough.", Kol heard a woman's voice from behind him, so he turned around to look.

An extremely beautiful woman in her mid thirties, with long, curly brown hairs, and appearing to be of Mediterranean descent.

As Kol looked at her deeply, trying to figure out where he had seen her, she was also observing him curiously.

After a while, "This is my soul form, so I should be in 'The Other Side', a supernatural dimension where the spirits of the dead supernatural beings reside.", Kol broke the silence as he seemed to have figured out his situation.

For the 'immortality spell' to work, Kol had to die once, so he used the only imperfection in the 'spell of life and soul concept' to temporarily turn it off.

This way, when he finally drank Darkseid's blood and died as a part of the ritual, his soul was not sent to the Power Stone like the usual, but 'The Other Side'.

The woman seemed slightly surprised seeing Kol's reaction, but she still replied, "Yes! And that means that you're dead for real now. Not just a part of that little ritual of yours, but really dead.".

"Hmm. That is interesting. This shouldn't have happened. My soul was supposed to go back to my body after my new heart entered my chest, and I was supposed to wake up.", Kol seemed confused by this strange situation, but intrigued.

He wasn't scared one bit because he already had contingencies in place if something went wrong.

"Interesting, huh!? Well I guess that's one way to look at it. Your soul can't go anywhere now because it's trapped here. It's either this, or getting sealed in the ancestral plane for all eternity. Those conservative witches consider you the worst abomination in history!", the woman replied somewhat sarcastically.

In the show, the Ancestral Plane was a supernatural dimension in which the deceased ancestral witches of New Orleans resided.

But of course, the Ancestral plane, being a supernatural dimension, couldn't only exist in New Orleans, which hadn't even been founded in this era.

It was, in fact, created by the conservative witches of the past, and used by many witch communities in the world as the place to depart after death.

Understanding his situation, Kol found it a little funny as he spoke with mockery in his tone, "I see! Those witches have interfered in the ritual. Do they think they can actually trap me!? Ha! Ha! Ha! That's cute! I never thought they would be this delusional. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!", he laughed out loud.

Then after calming down, he continued, "Well that would explain MY situation. But do tell me, Qetsiyah! Why did YOU help me!?", Kol asked Qetsiyah in a tone that clearly showed his intrigue.

"So you know my identity! That is interesting. I didn't expect this.", Qetsiyah seemed amazed as she spoke.

"Let me guess, you wanted to act all mysterious while dropping off little hints about your identity. The whole Silas, Amara story, and about me being Silas's doppelgänger. Until finally! You would drop the bomb on me about you being the great Qetsiyah herself. And I would be all shocked, scared, and overwhelmed by this absurd situation! Right?", Kol spoke sarcastically.

Qetsiyah once again seemed amazed by Kol's statement. Although this was a bit embarrassing to the thousand years old witch to admit it, but it was true.

Qetsiyah replied after a short silence, "Yeah Pretty much! And as for why I saved you, is because I've been watching you. You see! For a thousand years, I've had nothing to do other than watching the doppelgängers of Silas and Amara live their lives.",

"And they always make the same choices. Whenever they meet, they are drawn to each other, and fall in love. Like it's the will of the universe.", she clenched her fists and spoke in a vengeful tone.

Then she continued, "But you didn't make the same choice. You're completely different. An anomaly. And that's why I helped you. Because deep down, I can't help but wonder! If Silas was more like you, then perhaps things would play out differently.", with some longing in her tone.

"Hmm. I see. Yeah! That makes sense.", Kol replied awkwardly in a low voice.

Qetsiyah was the most powerful witch of all time and she got her revenge. Kol didn't feel much sympathy for her, but he was still amazed at how stupid this Silas was.

All Qetsiyah ever craved was love and affection, yet Silas betrayed her, and what could be the perfect woman, was now just a hollow shell of her formal self. Qetsiyah was now broken inside.

"Anyway, what did you mean before? You seemed pretty confident that the witches wouldn't be able to trap you in ancestral plane. You do know that they have absolute control over that realm, right!? Like me, here! You're a warlock yourself, so I don't have to explain that to you.", Qetsiyah asked to change the subject. She was also curious where Kol's confidence came from.

"That realm, yeah sure they do! But it's still a dimension seperate from the real world. So even if they have absolutely authority over it,", here Kol paused as he formed strange hand signs and chanted an Asgardian spell.

Then Kol raised his right hand, and suddenly, red flame ignited in his palm out of nowhere.

"I can still do this!", Kol finished his previous statement.

Qetsiyah looked at this spectacle in amazement.

Seeing this reaction from the most powerful witch of all time, Kol decided to explain, "As you can see, this is not the energy of 'The Other Side', but a different dimensional energy altogether.",

"For some reason, it's hard to access any dimensional energy from the real world without proper ritual. But! Once you're outside the real world, like here in 'The Other Side', or in ancestral plane for that matter, all dimensional energies become accessible. They can only stop me from channeling ancestral plane, but what about all the other dimensions!?", Kol spoke in a proud, yet profound tone.

"Those ancestral spirits were just digging their own graves if they really think they can trap me. It's like giving me access to unlimited power, and then challenging me.", Kol continued in a sarcastic tone.

After a short silence, Qetsiyah spoke, "I never thought dimensional energy can also be accessed in this manner. This is a real eye opener!",

"Though it does make me wonder. How do you know so much? All this knowledge. The way you altered the 'immortality spell'. I don't think even I can do that, and I created it! All of this couldn't have been just your own findings, so what is your secret!?", she asked curiously.

But Kol didn't reply. Instead, he reached out to hold her hands and spoke while looking at her in the eyes, "You've been here for a thousand years, waiting to finally truly die and find peace. But I ask you, how much have you really lived!? I'm leaving. Come with me! Let me show you the real beauty of life. Let me show you what it really means to breathe.".

Qetsiyah seemed a bit flustered by his forwardness. It caught her off guard, but she quickly regained her bearings and shook his hands off as she replied, "That is a tempting offer indeed! But I'm afraid I'll have to decline.".

"May I know why?", he asked back.

"Why, huh? Well, because I have trust issues. I'm controlling, paranoid, vindictive and a little crazy. But most of all, I'm obsessed with hurting Silas like he hurt me, and I've not hurt him enough yet.", Qetsiyah clenched her fists as she replied in anger.

"So basically! You're still in love with him, aren't you? He cheated on you and shattered your heart in million prices, yet you're still waiting for him even after a thousand years.", Kol concluded in a cold, angry voice.

Hearing this, Qetsiyah wanted to deny it at first, but after a short silence, and watching his reaction, "Perhaps!", she replied in a low voice.

"Well then you better mark my words. I'm not going to give up. I'll keep coming here to bother you, and try to convince you to live once again.", Kol raised his voice as he spoke in a challenging tone.

Qetsiyah had been observing Kol for all his life. She had seen him at his best, and at his worse. She had seen all his defeats, his wins, and losses. His lies and deceptions. She had seen him become an immortal monster, and all his desperate and embarrassing moments.

Yet even after all that, when the choice was placed in her hands, she chose to save him from a fate worse than death.

Granted, he wouldn't actually suffer, but she didn't know that. So Kol was going to repay this act of kindness with kindness.

Qetsiyah was stunned. She couldn't understand why Kol would go that far for her, so she asked, "Why? Why would you even bother?".

"Only because I am nosy that way! And stubborn and obsessive. And tend to get fixated on random little things.", he explained the same way she explained about her personality.

"In fact, you know what, I might even have a little God complex! If I don't see things going the way I want, I try correcting them. Can't help myself!", he continued in a sarcastic tone.

Then Kol gazed in her beautiful eyes while continuing in soft voice, "And it just so happens that I have decided to bring a genuine smile on this beautiful face of yours.".

Hearing him say that, Qetsiyah was shocked and embarrassed, but before she could say anything in reply, Kol took advantage of her surprise to lean forward, and kissed her on the cheek.

"Ok then! See ya later. I'll do something about your sulking next time.", then he disappeared and went back to the world of living.

Leaving Qetsiyah, who just stood there in surprise, unable to comprehend what just happened.

But after a while, she touched the spot on her cheek where she was just kissed. This was her first human interaction in a thousand years. It felt weird, yet warm, but overall good.

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First cliffhanger of the story. I tried to avoid it, but couldn't.